Pain.
Immense pain.
Silver Dellsworth, The sole heir of the Business giant Dellsworth family. He had seen, heard, felt, and touched a lot of things during his almost eighteen years of life, but physical pain was something that was dead last on the list of things he was intimate with.
So the pain he was experiencing from every bone, muscle, and ligament to the very corners of the mystifying soul didn't make him wait long enough and did what every organism goes through once the mind and body shoots above a certain threshold of stimulation.
In a barely lit forest that was anything but quite, Silver laid, fainted. But, he was not alone. There were four other creatures who looked like wolves but not comparable to them in terms of size, at least five times them, lying around.
But that was not all. If the moonlight properly fell on the carcasses, you'd be able to notice the skin of the beasts falling!
No. It was not just the skin. The beast itself was turning into a black, ash-like substance, scattering on the ground and in the air. It was as if the beast broke down on a molecular level.
The ashes that were lingering in the air then started breaking down themselves and started vanishing. This ash was eating itself as though its very existence had been erased from the programming and not even a speck was allowed to exist any longer.
What caused this phenomenon was not known but if someone were to look at this scene, they would be able to tell almost immediately by pointing at the unconscious boy lying at the center of it all.
The scrawny-looking boy would not be a giveaway if it were not for the white hazy, almost silver-looking mist that the boy's body was emitting.
A few moments later, This hazy silver mist receded back into the boy's body, With the last activity ceasing in the immediate surroundings, Only the cacophony of fighting noises and shouting could be heard in the otherwise quiet forest.
***
click…click…click…
"Shut up, Roxy. Five more minutes…"
Click…click…click…
"Ugh—Roxy!"
As he squinted his eyes open, he felt that he was lying in a very unnatural position. His bed was naturally very comfortable and It would have its mattress changed every week so the cause of this discomfort had to be him.
"Hmm? Is it not morning yet? Why Is she waking me up now then?"
Noticing barely any light in the surrounding, Silver tried to get up from his sleeping position. That is when it hit him—
"Arrrrgggghhhh"
Perplexed by the wave of such an unfamiliar pain from every part of his body, Silver, who was trying to get up, fell down again with his head hitting the ground, making little contribution to the already immense pain he was experiencing.
"Huff…huff…huff…"
The pain was enough for him to beg for salvation from this suffering, for a moment he thought that the elders of his family had already made a move after not being able to handle his existence anymore, but that thought too got buried under the waves of torturous pain.
"Wha-what's this?"
Finally gaining some clarity after the hellish waves of pain, Silver looked at his immediate surroundings.
An unfamiliar terrain, wild trees, and bushes, not before seen flora, and terrifying shadows muddling his peripheral vision. But all of Silver's vision was taken by the single light emitting entity in the cloudy expanse.
"Was the moon always so big? It …it was I think? No?"
The massive full moon with a slight yellowish tint occupied most of the sky vault, with its light sometimes piercing its way through the clouds to make its way through, illuminating the place enough for him to see.
"Kidnapping…yes! I must have been kidnapped! It finally happened. Wait, Shouldn't they be dangerous? What if they kill me instead of asking for money or maybe selling me alive to the black market…?"
The sole heir of the empirical Dellsworth family had its own unique attraction to it. Who can say for sure if weird people of the black market weren't interested.
The thought of him being kidnapped, potentially to be put up on sale as a slave on the black market seemingly took away the memory of him experiencing the hellish pain from just minutes ago.
Gradually, the tinnitus buzzing in his ears that Silver was yet to be aware of as he indulged in his backup plans, wore off.
Clank
Clink
Clink
Clank
Finally breaking him out of the trance, the distant noises made their way towards him.
"What's going on? Are the rescuers already here?"
The sound of fighting and clashing was the main factor that led him to such a conclusion. Even if trapped into a bubble of meaningless life, He was still the one and only heir. It would not do the elders and other members of the family any good if the news of Dellsworth's heir being kidnapped got out, If anything, only damaging the reputation.
He decided to move towards the place from where the clashing sounds were coming from but he had only started to get up from his lying position when every nook and cranny of his body started hurting like hell again.
That was when it finally hit him, he had been lying down here, unconscious because of this pain. Only when he became more conscious of his body, which was releasing screech-worthy pain from every twitch of the muscle did he notice the oddity.
"What are these clothes? Wai–!"
Before he could think about his clothes, he froze, baffled at what he was seeing.
His arm had become pale white! As if all the blood had been taken out from it and then bleached. It was not only his arm. His palms, fingers, legs, and toes. Even his stomach when he lifted his ragged shirt up.
All these minor movements were costing him a grit but he was flummoxed much to register it.
Being an athletic child, or forced to be one from a young age, maintaining the 'honor and prestige' of the Dellsworth had resulted in him being left with a much darker skin tone. No matter how used to he was, something like an outright change of his complexion was not something that would make him adhere to logical conclusions.
"Yes…it's weird. Is it so easy to enter the heavily guarded mansion unless they were helped by inside forces…but the elders won't be that hasty to silence me for good so suddenly after all… "
"I haven't heard a single gunshot yet…What the fuck is going on…?"
Woosh
Woosh
He didn't get to continue his string of doubts as something approached him at a speed the human eye was incapable of following.
Awoooooo
"Wha–"
He barely let a word out when blood splashed all over him.
The spillage of blood didn't stop, everything was too fast for him to even record, reacting was out of question.
Moving his vision towards the first moving thing he had encountered, it was anything but a pleasant experience. Rather, what he saw made his legs tremble and his knees too soft to control his weight.
Thud
Falling on his but, he looked at the enormous wolf-like beasts with glowing red eyes and a menacing set of teeth capable of tearing him whole in just a single gnawing action. The blood dripping from his jaw didn't help the picture, only horrifying it further for Silver.
"He—lp"
A single word was all his trembling body and stuttering lips could muster.
As if his prayer was being answered, The wolf-like beast tumbled to the side and fell down, still menacingly glaring at Silver.
The unrhythmic and strained breathing of the beast was felt clearly on Silver's skin which had all its hair stood up at the end.
Silver's attention was then stolen by a single shining object protruding out from the side of his neck which he was not able to spot before due to the towering size of the beast, Now that the beast had fallen down. The shining object, under the moonlight, was too conspicuous to not be noticed.
"A metal pipe? Wait a sword?"
Protruding from the neck of the wolf beast was a bladed weapon, glistening in the moonlight, highlighting the blood splattered onto it.
Just when Silver was thinking that things couldn't get any more absurd after observing his unfamiliar skin, He was suddenly graced by a towering wolf-like beast with not firearm wounds but a sword rooted deeply into its neck.
'Just what is happening right now? Why a sword? No, wait–it can be a metal piece from some heavy firearm…right?'
No matter how absurd it was at this point, one thing was clear: The sword…metal piece had saved his life. If not for it, he would have become a mashed up pile of skin and bones in the beast's stomach already.
'It came from that side, It must be running away from the assailant…I should try going that way. No I must or else I die.'
Strengthening his newfound resolve, Silver once again got up and started walking one step at a time. The pain hadn't gone anywhere and every minor movement was torturous, let alone walking like this.
He had barely taken his fifth step when he came to a complete halt once again, But this time absolute fear flocked his shaking eyes. He had missed something that he should've realized earlier…way earlier.
"Th—this is no...t….Who am I?"